He Prayed
by Mage of the Heart
Summary: He thanked Him for sending him an Angel, if only for a day, in the forsaken world he had still to tread without her. GuyxMeg. T-Rating.


**I don't own the Robin Hood characters**

**I had to write this. I couldn't believe they took her away from him though!**

**---**

Her lips were soft. Like silk; smooth, lustrous, caressing his own mouth like some rich linen he could run over his skin with ease. There was moisture there, moisture he wouldn't have expected, given the circumstances, but that gave him hope; it was a vain, pointless hope, but it rang out nonetheless, crying out in the darkness for her, for Meg... He wished he could have truly kissed her, could have cupped her face with his hands and held her against him with the intention of never letting her go, but he didn't dare; each moment was precious. Each second that she remained with him was a second more of that beautiful, heavenly glimpse he had never before believed in. It was the first kiss he could remember where every emotion going into it was genuine; there was no ulterior motive, no jealous rage driving him, no lust for power and no need for anything but her. The fact she was a commoner, a simpleton and an innocent... it didn't matter. He had nothing to gain from her; no money, no influence... just the soft joy of her erratic pulse beneath his fingertips as he touched her neck.

His eyes burnt with a foreign sting, but he didn't bother to push it away; he was a slave to his emotions for these few minutes, these few, precious seconds, with a girl who had seen in him what nobody else could; even Marian , perfect as he once assumed her to be, had never shown this much trust, this faith, this comfort... His heart broke twice as he looked on the pale face of his redemption; she was so much like Marian, in some ways at least... but this girl, this stranger, really, had somehow wormed her way into his heart in a matter of hours, and the idea of losing her so soon, without a chance to make himself worthy, to be the man she so clearly believed he was capable of being, made his knees weaken and crumple beneath him. As her breaths became more harsh, more heavy and laboured, he did the only thing he could think of; he prayed.

Not being the most religious of men, it scared him at first that perhaps it was wrong to turn to a deity he otherwise ignored in his time of need... but he saw her face, he saw her trust, her beauty, and he realized that if it was a crime, it didn't matter; he was well on his way to hell already, but for her, he would plunder the depths of his eternal fiery prison, just to know that she, somehow, was seated as high up in the clouds as was permissible.

He prayed for her. He thanked God for the one person who had believed in him amidst the fog of hatred that every other person in Nottingham cast over him; he thanked Him for her beauty, for her smile, for the way she had kept her faith in him as he swept her out of the hellhole that Nottingham Castle had become; he thanked Him for the warmth of her voice and the beating of her heart. And finally, as she turned to him and spoke her last words, telling him how she had always liked him, really, he thanked Him for sending him an Angel, if only for a day, in the forsaken world he had still to tread without her. He prayed for her eternal peace; he prayed that age would never overcome her features in the world that lay beyond his reach; he prayed that her body would be saved from the blight of mortal endings, from the rot that he had witnessed on battlefields; he prayed that the light in her eyes, still shining as her breath faded and her pulse stopped, would never fade, and he prayed that somehow, in some way, she would know the way she had changed him.

He reached out a shaking hand to close her eyes, pulling her against his chest and letting tears fall freely, as he had never before allowed, splashing onto the fabric of her clothing and the soft skin of her cheek... he wiped them away; nothing would ever taint her. His tears would fall, and he would be thankful for it, but they would not besmirch her beauty; his darkness would stay with him, and she would pass into heaven pure and perfect, as God had sent her to him. He would not darken her beauty with the horrors of his past.


End file.
